Winning wine ways with SIA

Singapore Airlines hosted a wine tasting event at Coley & Punch in Auckland last night – building up to its Winetopia event today.

An ‘intimate group of 12’ key partners will get an insiders’ look at the 60 vineyards involved this evening at Shed 10. Hermann Freidanck, food and beverage manager at Singapore Airlines, and Chek Leng, chief steward and air sommelier led the tasting for a media group and shared their knowledge and passion for wine, as well as giving insights into how Singapore Airlines caters to the different needs of the passengers it carries each year.

Freidanck says SQ has its own challenges since its flights are all long distance and it can not cater for a dominant culture or nationality. ‘Most our passengers are actually not Singaporean, so we can’t do one wine for all – we have to look at different wines for different destinations. While much of the attention is on premium classes, the economy cabin has its own challenges. ‘We buy 45,000 cases of both white and red wine, 90,000 cases in all and there are not many places that can provide that much capacity which combines quality and value.’